Commercial Television

By David Zurawik and David Zurawik,SUN TELEVISION CRITIC | October 15, 1995

Are you for Big Bird or big business? Are you on the side of little kids or the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers?There is a tremendous battle going on in Washington over children's television, and, as a result, these are the kinds of loaded questions parents are asking their elected officials and federal regulators.On one side of the ramparts is the commercial broadcasting industry -- the networks, their affiliates and local independent television stations. On the other is a coalition of education, health and child advocacy organizations, ranging from the National Parent Teacher Association to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

One of the most accomplished directors of television commercials ever, Joe Pytka would rarely seem at a loss for how to make one. He has created thousands of TV ads, from Pepsi and McDonald's spots to the famed "This Is Your Brain on Drugs" series. His portfolio includes more than 30 Super Bowl commercials and the 1996 Warner Bros. cartoon movie Space Jam. His fee is $15,000 a day. But when presented last spring with a concept for a Gatorade commercial depicting Michael Jordan playing basketball against a younger version of himself - to air during Super Bowl XXXVII on Sunday - Pytka was uncertain he could pull it off. "It was almost like an impossible project.

COMMERCIAL TELEVISION stations in the Baltimore-Washington area have improved their programming for children in the past year -- but only slightly. The Maryland Campaign for Kids' TV gave an overall grade of "C" to the stations' performance, up from "C-" last year. Even so, there is a long way to go, in quantity, quality and timing. When stations do provide good programs for children, too many of them get buried in very early morning slots when most young viewers are still asleep.Despite these signs of progress, it's easy to understand the frustration that has prompted Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt to propose tougher regulations.

By David Zurawik and David Zurawik,Sun Television Critic | July 22, 2001

LOS ANGELES -- Andre Braugher got his own series on ABC, Michael Michele moved on to ER, Clark Johnson directed a film about the Montgomery bus boycott for HBO, and Kyle Secor will be featured in the premiere episodes of two new network dramas this fall, ABC's Philly with Kim Delaney, and NBC's Crossing Jordan, with Jill Hennessy. But you might be surprised to know that no alum of Homicide: Life on the Street, the critically acclaimed NBC drama that made Baltimore its home during the 1990s, has been busier since the series ended than Jon Seda, who played Detective Paul Falsone during the last two seasons of the series.

By David Zurawik and David Zurawik,Sun Television Critic | July 22, 2001

LOS ANGELES -- Andre Braugher got his own series on ABC, Michael Michele moved on to ER, Clark Johnson directed a film about the Montgomery bus boycott for HBO, and Kyle Secor will be featured in the premiere episodes of two new network dramas this fall, ABC's Philly with Kim Delaney, and NBC's Crossing Jordan, with Jill Hennessy. But you might be surprised to know that no alum of Homicide: Life on the Street, the critically acclaimed NBC drama that made Baltimore its home during the 1990s, has been busier since the series ended than Jon Seda, who played Detective Paul Falsone during the last two seasons of the series.

One of the most accomplished directors of television commercials ever, Joe Pytka would rarely seem at a loss for how to make one. He has created thousands of TV ads, from Pepsi and McDonald's spots to the famed "This Is Your Brain on Drugs" series. His portfolio includes more than 30 Super Bowl commercials and the 1996 Warner Bros. cartoon movie Space Jam. His fee is $15,000 a day. But when presented last spring with a concept for a Gatorade commercial depicting Michael Jordan playing basketball against a younger version of himself - to air during Super Bowl XXXVII on Sunday - Pytka was uncertain he could pull it off. "It was almost like an impossible project.

In an effort to attract a new, younger audience, Maryland Public Television will break with tradition by airing reruns of a commercial television hit -- "St. Elsewhere" -- on June 1. The show, about a city-run hospital in Boston, ran on NBC from 1982 through 1988, winning several Emmys and a Peabody Award. MPT plans to run the show at 11 p.m., competing with news programs on commercial television and Washington's public Channel 32.The Evening Sun would like your opinion. Should MPT broadcast reruns of commercial programs?

LONDON -- The forced resignation of the executive chairman of Granada Television Ltd., whose hits included "Brideshead Revisited" and "The Jewel in the Crown," has stirred fears here that quality programming will be sacrificed in the quest for short-term profits in Britain's increasingly competitive television industry.Granada is one of Britain's most respected commercial television companies, and its critically acclaimed programs have proved quite popular in the United States as well as in Britain.

Maryland Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, a Democrat, and her Republican challenger, Alan L. Keyes, will square off for an hourlong debate at 8:30 tonight on Maryland Public Television's channels.The encounter is to begin immediately after the last presidential debate at Michigan State University in East Lansing.The liberal Ms. Mikulski and the conservative Mr. Keyes clashed on Washington-area radio last week and disagreed sharply on a variety of issues.Mr. Keyes has charged that Ms. Mikulski refuses to debate with him on a commercial television station in Baltimore because she wants to limit his audience as much as possible while still meeting her obligation to debate.

Remember Priscilla Goodbody?She was the fictional, invisible network censor trotted out every time Johnny Carson wanted to take a jab at the prim and proper Broadcast Standards and Practices office at NBC. She was a humorless schoolmarm type who objected to the word "toilet," demanded that married men and women on TV inhabit separate beds, if not separate rooms, and was constantly on Mr. Carson's case for his legendary double-entendres. She even wanted to censor his devilish smirk.Things change.

By David Zurawik and David Zurawik,SUN TELEVISION CRITIC | October 15, 1995

Are you for Big Bird or big business? Are you on the side of little kids or the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers?There is a tremendous battle going on in Washington over children's television, and, as a result, these are the kinds of loaded questions parents are asking their elected officials and federal regulators.On one side of the ramparts is the commercial broadcasting industry -- the networks, their affiliates and local independent television stations. On the other is a coalition of education, health and child advocacy organizations, ranging from the National Parent Teacher Association to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

COMMERCIAL TELEVISION stations in the Baltimore-Washington area have improved their programming for children in the past year -- but only slightly. The Maryland Campaign for Kids' TV gave an overall grade of "C" to the stations' performance, up from "C-" last year. Even so, there is a long way to go, in quantity, quality and timing. When stations do provide good programs for children, too many of them get buried in very early morning slots when most young viewers are still asleep.Despite these signs of progress, it's easy to understand the frustration that has prompted Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt to propose tougher regulations.

The presentation of the monumental television production this week of The Civil War is now almost half completed, but we have seen enough to conclude that this series has to be rated as Public Television's finest hour, to borrow Winston Churchill's extravagant term.There has been of late a good deal of lamentation about ignorance of history among young people in this country, and indeed it is a lamentable situation when young people show, in surveys, such an appalling lack of knowledge of their nation's past that many students don't even know which sides Lee and Grant fought on. Much of that pervasive ignorance, no doubt, is merely an aspect of the Age of Television -- a time when large numbers of children are spending more time watching TV than attending class.

I have a problem with executives who make a good living in commercial television and then get religion and write books denouncing it. That's essentially the case with "Down the Tube: An Inside Account of the Failure of American Television" (Basic Books; $24) by William F. Baker and George Dessart. But problems with the messenger don't mean the message is not worth hearing.Baker is a former president of Westinghouse Television and current CEO of public television station WNET in New York City.